Update #27 The Lawsuit/Meeting with City/SB 9 - What You Should Know
In This Update
· What’s Happening with the Lawsuit?
· NVSS Meets with City Officials
· What is Sacramento Up To?
What’s Happening with the Lawsuit?
As I mentioned in my last update, the developer Jha sued the City of Rancho Palos Verdes because the city is saying that he did not submit his application in time to use the Builder's Remedy law. Without the Builder's Remedy law, this project can’t be built in its current form. Now Jha, who is also an RPV resident, is forcing the city to spend OUR city budget to defend itself.
The trial date has not been set yet, but per our legal team, this type of lawsuit generally goes to trial quickly; probably by the end of the year. In the interim there will be a lot of filings back-and-forth. Lawsuits are expensive, so we anticipate Jha will try to negotiate with the city and offer to reduce the size of this development in return for the city to stop fighting it. We will be closely watching for this. Our position is that the only acceptable building in this canyon is what’s allowed under current zoning: one single-family home on the 5 acre parcel that doesn’t disturb the steep slopes where there is a potential for landslides.
View the lawsuit here:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1nQHjQTllX7y71EiHO5NV1eYTDs9UzpF0/view?usp=drive_link
View the City’s response here:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Eza3udQxUByr7wYDLt_1rG5zW5sO6yAV/view?usp=drive_link
NVSS Meets with City Officials
NVSS leadership met with city officials in order to reinforce our concerns about this development and to strongly encourage the city to fight the lawsuit. We also provided the city with documents that we thought would be helpful to their efforts. The city has filed the necessary documents with the court and has assured us that they intend to defend the decision made by both the Planning Commission and City Council to deny Jha the use of the Builder's Remedy law.
NVSS is committed to providing whatever help we can to the city to assist fighting this lawsuit. To that end, our lawyers are doing research on the legal issues involved in this case, and will provide whatever they find to the city. Though many of the lawyers assisting us are neighbors who are volunteering their time, we must also pay for lawyers with expertise in Land-Use. For this reason, we could really use your ongoing donations. Please help us in supporting our city in defending our way of life. If you’ve donated before, please consider making an additional donation. If you haven’t, now would be a great time to make that first donation.
PLEASE DONATE! SAVE OUR SERENITY! (Link below)
Fundraiser by Aurora R : SAVE OUR NEIGHBORHOOD
What is Sacramento Up To?
When was the last time you went anywhere in the South Bay and said “I wish there were more people here”??
Did you know that single-family residence zoning has essentially been eliminated in the State of California?
That’s correct. While most of us were going about our daily lives, the state legislature passed SB 9, making it legal to split any single-family residence lot in two and put up two separately owned dwellings, each of which can have an accessory dwelling unit (ADU), for a total of four units on a single-family home lot. The intent of the legislation was to lower the cost of housing, but at least according to one judge who attempted to strike down SB 9, there’s no evidence that this is decreasing the cost of housing. What it does do is increase crowding. Subsequently the state legislature redid the law so it is in force again.
This is an example of how the state is using its power to change our neighborhoods in ways that we may not like, in the name of affordable housing. The problem is that there’s no evidence this method provides affordable housing. What it does do is make builders nice profits. (And politicians get bigger campaign donations.)
I’d encourage everyone to join Our Neighborhood Voices, a statewide group that wants to change state law so these kinds of ineffective affordable housing laws won’t ruin our neighborhoods. You can find them at:
https://www.ourneighborhoodvoices.com
NEXT UPDATE: Be Prepared: What’s the Likely Timeline of this Whole Project?